Rightwords... Prudent Conservatism

Labels: Illegals, Immigration

Americans are not afraid of Iraqi

The American citizen is simply not concerned with the Iraqi situation, nor is it particularly afraid of the Iraqi people, so long as they are in Iraq! This makes it rather hard to drum up much enthusiasm for the drawn out war over there, especially when there are horrid US casualties to mourn every day. We are still haunted by the Vietnam War too, and many of the protesting voices against the war come from the ranks of Vietnam protesters who are repeating their saga of so many years ago.

As the memory of 9/11 recedes into limbo, and AQ is downgraded by the press and the Left, we are losing the way in Iraq politically. We have just sent a huge signal to the Iraq government that we are not going to stick it out, and we may well renege on many of our sacred promises to them. History is poised to repeat itself from Congress, by letting the Iraqi sort things out for themselves before they are ready and able.

The American public is not being fully informed about the situation, the plans, and the progress to date, so their inclination is to forgedaboudit. Let’s get out of there!

This would be a very grave mistake.

Labels: GWOT, Iraq, Politics and Iraq

May God continue to bless both our fallen men,

and those men that are serving now around the world.

Labels: God, History

It is a long process at best, but it is the only way

Because of the tribal and Sectarian nature of Iraqi loyalties, it is apparent that a direct approach to “winning hearts and minds” is an exercise in futility. They do not think as we do, and any pretensions that they do are simply wrong.

A few examples will illustrate the point clearly:

1) death is to be welcomed by the faithful—to die in the service of Allah guarantees heaven;

2) an infidel---a non-Islamic person—is not human, and can be lied to, cheated, beaten or be killed without penalty in an Islamic nation.

3) Islam is the only religion, and it must conquer the world, install Sharia or Islamic Law, and subjugate the infidels to dhimmitude status; it is every Muslim’s duty to fight—jihad—for dominance of Islam.

Since Islam is both a religion and a way of governing, it is apparent that installing and operating a secularist government will have a hard time in Iraq. Thus Iraqi “democracy” will not resemble ours in shape or form. We see that daily when the Iraqi parliament cannot move forward on key issues because of the opposition of various sects and tribes.

What is the way forward then? How can we break through these thought patterns of a lifetime and a history that is remembered back through the centuries? How can we bring tribal leaders to the point where they flip their support to us? It can be done and is being done in An Bar Province now.

A quote from Rules for Radicals by Saul Alinsky;

“I remember the precepts dinned into me as an organizer in some of the darker places of Martial Law Philippines which I have never forgotten. When I think about Iraq and what happened in Anbar, the memories all come back.

1. Create the base organizations first and then confederations later. Any organization built in the capital city without a grassroots foundation is nothing but an eroding sandpile;

2. Go and live among the people. The only people who can organize the "masses" from headquarters are Communist intellectuals and academics.

3. In organizing the people, start from their level. Work from their immediate problems to the more systemic. Begin with the concrete before you talk about the abstract. As a people's organization must develop the capability to solve the water supply problem for itself before it can presume to tackle drafting a constitution.

4. Real leaders are forged in action. Most of the leaders pointed out to you by academics ain't worth shit. Leaders discover they are leaders. Sometimes they don't know.

5. Nothing liberates the people's consciousness so much as the experience of facing down an invincible enemy and finding they aren't so invincible.

6. You know that you have done a good job as an organizer when one day nobody misses you.”

This quote was brought to my attention by Wretchard at The Belmont Club. Much of the answer to our need for a way ahead is here in this quote. The caution is, however, that this takes a lot of time and sustained effort to succeed—time measured in years, not months. It takes trained men that can gain the confidence of the people and the tribal leaders. It takes funds to support projects. Finally, it takes a trigger level of security and confidence that support is around the corner if needed.

We are trying to establish the level of security now, but with too few troops, I believe, as I have stated many times. Perhaps it is also true that the special men needed to win over the people, one family or one tribe at a time, are simply not there in sufficient numbers to make a difference.

Labels: GWOT, Iraq, Muslims

One Feeds the Other

It is time to be realistic about the Iranians and their significant role in destabilizing Iraq. Sophisticated weaponry, IEDs, guns, RPGs and ammo, as well as trained fighters, pour across the border from Iran to Iraq, bolstering the Shiites in their war against the Sunni. They may as well be supporting AQ in their efforts in the Sunni triangle, thus playing on both sides in the attempt to keep Iraq in turmoil. The long border between these two nations is not easy to close, especially with the few troops we have now.

Then, too, there is a porous border with Syria which should be closed, but again cannot be for lack of sufficient troops on the ground. Fighters feed into Iraq here also, and bring with them cash to pay for the insurgency, arms and ammo. Our half-hearted attempts to interdict the traffic have been far less successful than they should be if we are to win in Iraq.

When you add up what is needed to close and monitor both borders, the number of troops is high—on the order of 150 thousand over and above the current 150 thousand we now have.

On top of this, we may face a serious challenge by Iran in the next months on the ground, if we pursue an air attack on Iranian nuclear sites, or if Israel does. This would draw us into the attack, thus activating the Iranians to retaliate across the Iraqi borders. Our current force of 150 thousand would then face a major force from Iran, perhaps 500 thousand or more troops out of the Iranian army of 2 million men, and another 200 thousand from Syria if they choose to come into the fray. Sheer numbers of enemy troops on two sides of Iraq would cause us serious concerns for the safety of our troops, and if the initial engagements are not fully successful for us, we would be forced to withdraw precipitously, or risk losing the lot.

Were we, however, to add yet another 150 to 200 thousand troops to our force, thus reaching 450 to 500 thousand men all told, the situation would be far more manageable. This size of force might well forestall the Iranian-Syrian ground attacks altogether, which would amount to saving many thousands of lives on both sides.

If we do attack Iranian assets, it will have to be a thorough suppression of their command and control facilities, their air defenses, their airfields, and their communications installations, before going after the estimated 700 to 1,000 nuclear sites. These targets are all located in populous areas, which would mean significant collateral casualties in Iran, which, in turn, would force Iran to respond militarily in a meaningful way. They would most likely declare war on the US.

Hence I claim that the need exists to reinforce our forces in Iraq (and Kuwait) massively rather soon now.

Labels: GWOT, Iran, Iraq, The Threat

A few comments

Iraq

There is little reason to expect the surge to have a truly measurable effect by September of 07. Perhaps by September of 08 there will be good things to report, but the surge has not even been completed. My thinking now is that the President is playing possum, and has his eyes on Iran.

Illegal Immigration Agreement

What I have read so far seems to be a reasonable agreement, but I will await the full text before I deliver a definitive opinion. There seems to be more to the idea of Z Cards than mere amnesty. But I need to see the full text. I also wonder what will happen when a majority of Illegals stay away from applying for legal status.

Labels: Comments on the day, Illegals, Iraq

1. 
   

   -To withdraw into enclaves is to surrender.
   -To watch the slaughter of Iraqi and do nothing is not on!
   -To act as a catch basin for refugees is also not on if genocide begins, for the Muslims will go for them through our little forces.
   -So we will be forced to go back in to stop the genocide, having achieved zero by withdrawing in this manner. We will be in a precarious situation, since we are weak on the ground, and will have lost the confidence of the population.
   -If full revolution begins, we have inadequate forces on hand to stop it.
   -If adjacent nations join in, we are going to lose our inadequate forces.
   -Total withdrawal is not on either. That will signal the beginning of the slaughter.
   -We are left with the option of building up our forces and going for a win.
   -This would involve a draft in all probability. Use the conscripts to free up volunteers for duty in the combat zone.

2. 34
   mannning Said:
   12:35 pm
   

   Some further thoughts:

3. 
   -Diplomacy from weakness is hardly going to do any good. Not against Islamics. This route in not to be relied on for a solution.
   -They talk about catch basins for refugees. What a fine target for rockets, of which there seems to be an enormous supply. The refugees will be considered to be traitors to the cause, and deserving of being slaughtered.
   -Putting the catch basins on the border is a wonderful idea. I hope they don’t mean within 20 or 30km of any border; in other words, out of artillery range for Iranian and Syrian batteries. Not that this distance matters if Iran and Syria join in the fight, except to our exposed troops, and the refugees we are supposedly protecting.
   -Brookings people seem to be talking out of both sides of their mouths in that report. You can read into it my conclusion subtly presented: victory is the only real way out, but they don’t want to come right out and say that for political reasons.

Labels: hypocrisy, Iraq, Liberalism

Musings on my philosophy

My struggle all these months and years has been to find the grounding principles for my personal philosophy. After a while, I simply avoided the issue of Epistemology and Ontology and proceeded to develop some practical principles that I believed in well enough to follow. These I have enumerated my paper on Philosophical Foundations I intend to publish later.

There seem to be two dichotomies in my approach; one of religious faith and Christian principles, and the other of practical, everyday, working principles that may or may not reflect Christian principles. When we speak of origins of these ideas, the religious side follows from my early life lessons from Sunday school and Church, and the practical side from life experiences and a modicum of common sense. Neither of these sides addresses the real foundations of knowledge and how we obtain it in an ultimate sense.

One must spend a lifetime of study to penetrate the arenas of Epistemology and Ontology and come out the other side with a deep understanding of the basis of our knowledge, usually founded on the works of ancient and modern philosophers—Plato and Aristotle being the main starting points. But it goes on from there into vast complications of thought brought to us from later philosophers that have extended the universe of ideas and principles immensely. At the same time, they have introduced terminology to suit their ideas to the point that one seems first to be studying a new language with overlapping definitions of terms that spins ones head, for each philosopher one reads. In fact, that appears to be a criterion for being considered a deep thinker. Invent terms for their philosophy that have sufficient differences from earlier versions that no one can really pin them down, or if they can, they are still left with the problem of interpretation of every other philosopher in light of what they now understand (or think they do!).

Once you have mastered the key elements of the main philosophers, or at least become very familiar with them, you begin to wonder where your particular mindset falls, and which of these venerated men you most admire. I found bits and pieces that I treasured in all of the philosophers, but for me there was no systematic and complete philosophy that I could sign up to.

Something was missing in each one, and it was exceedingly difficult to trace all the way to the foundations just why I felt that way in each case. So I would move on, hoping to find the one I could fully agree with and believe in for life. It was like trying on coats and pants to see whether they fit. None did, not fully. I despaired also of making the in depth effort to create my own synthesis that would hold up under careful analysis (my own analysis, if no one else’s.)

One idea struck me as the most plausible I had found to explain how we came about as thinking people. The idea was inheritance of “loaded genes”. Forgetting about origins for the moment, we inherit a set of genes that carry enormous information for us to use as we mature. Much of what we become is due to our ability to use the power of this initial information effectively, and then to acquire ever more information as we go along.

So the mind is not a tabula rasa, or blank slate; it is loaded to the brim from our gene package with “how to” mechanisms that need merely the guidance of parents and others to evoke, especially the “how to learn” mechanism, and various “instinctive” survival functions. We have from the start been bequeathed the autonomous functions needed to regulate our bodily activities, which is an enormous package of information all by itself.

This information passing mechanism works alongside the physical passing of information carried by base elements of “how to” perform the energy-to-mass-to-elements transitions, which provides the environment and building blocks for life to begin. This is what some have labeled “self-organizing” matter.

The obvious question, then, is where does all of this information come from in the first place? Does it evolve by millions of simple accretions over billions of years, or is it somehow created whole? I do not think that scientists have progressed to the point where very much, if any, of the micro information contained in genes or in base elements are known with certainty. Nor have they, to my knowledge, compared genes from the past with genes from the present at this micro level. So it is an open scientific question.

If genes and self organizing matter were indeed created by some sort of accretion, this opens up a welter of concerns, such as how does a gene know which information to acquire and which information to ignore as it rolls along? Then too, where did the pure information, ready for assimilation by a gene, come from? Random events over time are an unlikely possibility, in my opinion, at least for the bulk of the complex information needed.

If we follow this argument a bit further, creation whole seems to be the simplest choice. The difficulty with this conclusion is quite apparent: what agency created these information and self organization mechanisms in the beginning? Was it not God?

Addendum

This meme argues for a First Cause, and then a set of incremental causes throughout the universe, the information for which is carried by elements and genes. It argues for a grand determination and a local free will for man.

.

Labels: God, Philosophy

mannning Said:
3:27 pm

This Islamophobe is weary of rehashing the whys and wherefores of our most excellent yet flawed Iraqi enterprise. It is boring to enumerate the mistakes we have made from the beginning, just to once again tar Bush with the outcome.

Suppose, however, we stepped back and looked at the situation with fresh eyes with the idea of winning this fight at as little cost in lives and treasure as possible.

We should have a roadmap of all the tribes, their names, locations, and roles available to use. We should know how they are positioned politically and in the government. Not just Sunni, Shiite, and Kurd, but all of the factions should be highly visible to us and their views, pictures, and actions publicized. Let there be light on the factions; know thy friends and thy enemies.

We should publicly award our friends with significant largess, and deny our enemies. Those that by their words and actions show their hostility should not be rewarded.

We are not going to win their hearts and minds until they are desperate, out of ammo, being denied safe havens, and see the rewards they are missing, if ever.

We need to disarm Iraq, starting with our enemies, but progressing through all of the provinces eventually.

We need to occupy Iraq completely; every corner and every street should be under surveillance and able to be responded to when insurgents show. We need to seal the borders effectively, and shoot all that try to enter without permission. We need to shoot every man that has a weapon in his possession, who is not uniformed and authorized to have one.

Martial Law should be declared, and curfews instituted such that night wanderers can be shot on sight. The central part of the cities should be auto-free zones, except for official vehicles. In other words, to cut down on this potentially long list of shoulds, we should clamp down hard and stay that way for a while.

All of this takes troop power, lots of it, and lots of the new armored vehicles too, that are better able to survive the IED. It would take lots of airborne equipment to keep key areas of this large land under surveillance 24/7, and able to open up with heavy firepower on any group that shows up illegally.

We should ourselves take control of the oil in Iraq, with the purpose of eventually distributing the revenues equitably, and meanwhile to use these assets to help pay expenses all around and provide rewards of a tangible nature to those who support us.

All of this would take perhaps a total of 500 thousand troops and support people, with a similar Iraqi force sharing the load.

What a pity we don’t have that kind of troop power. Perhaps we should draft and train men and let them take over stateside slots, thus freeing up volunteers for combat.

So far, it has been guns and butter, with no sacrifice asked of the people beyond the casualties we have suffered. I believe that the US citizen wants victory in Iraq, and would respond favorably to an all out push.

But then we have the Democrats in control of Congress, who have shown their passive approach very clearly, never mind the true feelings of the public. We won’t be allowed to “Go Heavy”, as we should have done up front.

When the Islamofacists start actions here on our home soil, they will face some very determined opposition, since we are an armed nation. I hope the lessons of the impending UK and European submergence into partial Sharia will be warning enough, but I doubt even that.

For those who speak of armchair soldiers, etc., willing to let others fight, the answer is yes, that is so. I fought my war overseas, now it is time for others to fight their war. What a shameful way to portray veterans of our wars; true armchair warriors, unable physically to endure combat yet

mannning Said:
10:24 pm

There was a time when we had sufficient manpower to fight two wars simultaneously on different continents and have a reserve for a third smaller conflict, as well as a home force sufficient to discourage attacks here. This sized force was not a particular strain on our economy and wouldn’t be so now. It would have given us the means, however, to saturate Iraq for long enough to set up a more stable situation in the four years we have been there.

But, we were thinking about starting over, rethinking the strategy and tactics, and trying to find a way forward. What I missed, of course, was someone taking the Go High approach, instead of any of the lesser routes to appeasement and defeat, which is the course we are on, it seems.

Everyone appears to be trying hard to back away from Go High, or at least denigrating the idea out of hand, possibly because they have convinced themselves that the public and Congress won’t support it, so they don’t either. Really prescient thinking! Or, perhaps it is the sheer complexity of the conflict and the number of parties to the brawl that make it so hard to see a way through this mess. So I am from the old school that has a few maxims to go by:

1. You start a brawl, you finish it.
2. If you have the power, use it.
3. Use overbearing power if you go in at all. War on the cheap will not win.
4. Always fight to win, not to send signals or other nuanced behaviors some leaders have been fond of.
5. The only good enemy is a totally defeated enemy, so go for the total win by knocking out every possible enemy combatant.
6. Forget about this hearts and minds stuff until after victory has been achieved. Time enough to mend and reconstruct when the shooting and bombing is over. Why reconstruct in the midst of bombings?
7. Maintain control of the entire situation until it is stable (in this current case, regain control). Might be five or ten years.
8. Isolate the area from outside interference as far as possible. Use your power to ensure this. Block the borders.
9. Go after a bite at a time (defeat in detail), use reward and punishment to convince groups of their best choice. Continue to expand the area of control and acceptance. control the power supply, water, and food sources. Good guys get the goods; bad guys don’t.
10. Take and hold the ground. Use troop power to deny the enemy his strongholds, and go after the leaders particularly.
11. Flatten any resistance, any militias, and build up some large concentration camps for the captured terrorists.
12. Always deal from strength when facing Islamics.
13. Be prepared to govern the nation from the grassroots up for some number of years.
14. Turn out thousands of men trained in the languages of importance.

...................
Oh well! This could go on and on, but the idea is to Dominate, and only then show the velvet glove. Today, this means a Supersurge within some months from now, or perhaps a year. It also means a draft, and a number of years of deployments.

Otherwise…you have earned a mess, so deal with it as best you can.
You want to fold, then fold, and take what comes after. I, for one, will feel far less secure about Islamofascists in America if we do fold.

mannning Said:
1:45 pm

Drongo; For your info, our census shows that there are over 6 million Muslims in the US. Care to guess how many of those can be radicalized instantly by the right approach? The 10,000 mosques here are hotbeds of shouting that the US should go Sharia, Muslims should have separate facilities, etc. etc, and our FBI states that more than 10% of them are fully indoctrinated into Islamofascism right now. We have a massive internal Muslim problem today, and it is only growing worse. All the same signs as the UK has been having are here, but somewhat more muted for the moment. Nothing good can come of this—nothing.

Our lovely MSM tries mightily to keep the lid on the events that can be linked to Islamic vengeance and terror so as not to alarm the masses. But the number of killings in the US that are indeed linked to Muslims is growing in every state.

I am all for using brains when solving problems. Somehow the wrong brains use the wrong philosophy when speaking of Islam and the West. They refuse to accept the fact that we are at war with Islam, not terror, per se. They refuse to believe that Muslims are serious about conquering the world by hook or crook, and they take a long view of how to do this. Thus, some people simply refuse to believe that the Iraqi situation is critically important to the battle against Islam, when it is actually the chief engagement.

Here we have a religious sect that believes in their ultimate victory against the infidel, they believe the infidels are beneath human and can be dealt with as they please when they have the power to do so, as we have seen often on TV. The 1.5 billion Muslims in the world can become a potent force for a new Islamic Caliphate.

Are we not using our heads today to see this threat in all of its manifestations? Are we not concerned as we watch Europe being Muslimed to death, one bite at a time?

I think most people are assuming the posture of an ostrich regarding the threat, and definitely not using their brains. Demographics in Europe are frighteningly in favor of a Muslin dominance by mid-century, and no one over there is doing a thing to stop it; they are all hung up on the liberty and freedom of deadly enemies to subvert the government and reorganize the state to their liking.

Some brainpower in Europe! Perhaps they should spend less time on their vaunted cultural pursuits and more time looking around them as the place crumbles.

mannning Said:
1:02 pm

‘Though I have to admit the general regional war is a very possible scenario as well. We’re all guessing here really”—Drango

An understatement of classic proportions! If we are guessing, then I will take the current situation, where we are running the Insurgents out of ammo, our nation is not being attacked directly, and there is some hope of controlling Iraq, and putting Iran on notice that we aren’t far away with a goodly force and airbases. Withdraw and it is indeed anyone’s guess as to the ultimate outcome. Reinforce our troops and it makes things a lot more difficult for the insurgents all around. Further, I like the idea of having a strong force next to Syria, just in case they get ambitious in the near term. I also like the idea of putting it to the Iraqi by saying you can have your government and your oil, but only if you comply fully with our agreements. Otherwise we will indeed turn things around into a full occupation and seize the oil fields.

Benevolence does not work with Islamists, but force does. I agree that the current Islamist government is playing a friendly charade with us, just waiting till they can gain sufficient power to throw us out. We should disabuse them of this notion by declaring that we will be in Iraq until we deem it fit for us to leave, so you have the choice of insurrection or full cooperation; take your pick. We put a delay in their sovereignty for our purposes, not theirs.

The whole strategic idea is to split the ME Islamic nations geographically, isolate Iran, and kill as many Islamofascists as show up for the war—over there—and with Iraqi help. The terrorists should have to battle their way into Iraq, not stream through the porous borders with Syria and Iran. As someone said, insurgents get tired of war, their base dwindles, and their opposition grows, given enough time. We need a few years with the illusion strongly built that we can stay as long as necessary.

Obviously, the nation needs to get behind this push, or it will not succeed. We, as a people, have not been put to the question properly, but I believe it could happen, if not right now, then after the 2008 elections. The people do not know what the real stakes are in Iraq, nor do they remember the commitments we have made to the Iraqi.

Perhaps it is true that only one of two things could mobilize the nation behind the war: 1) another attack of serious proportions in the US; or an Iranian adventure that becomes a cause for war, like their attempt to capture some of our troops once more.

There is a third possibility, which has many ramifications. We suddenly attack Iran’s air defenses and communications/command and control points, and then their nuclear facilities from the air. This has been expected by some, including me, in early 2008. The “Surge” fits that pattern closely, as more and more troops are eased into Iraq under that rubric, not only to further subdue Iraq, to cover for the loss of Brits in Basra, but also to face Iran with significant additional forces.

Given that Iran retaliates, we are launched into yet another, much larger, phase of the ME war. We then must look to our backs in Iraq!

That is one reason for not executing this attack until 08. We need the time to build up our forces, both at home and in Iraq, with stocks of weapons, vehicles, and the training of new troops. There might be an urgent campaign this Summer/Fall to prepare the public for this new phase of the war, as well as a call for mobilization of reserves and a draft.

The other reason to wait might be to give the opposition in Iran a year or so to do something significant.

This would present the new President, from whichever party, with an on-going war, but after major damage to the Iranian’s nuclear capability has been accomplished. The Bush saga ends there.

So I am guessing too!

Labels: GWOT, Iran, Iraq